"When Jin Peng first came back yesterday, I talked with him for a while. He told me that many people in Soviet Russia had already grown close to the West deep in their hearts."
"And when I was in America, I heard some rumors too. Back when that batch of Soviet Russian exchange students arrived in America in 1958, someone suggested they should be treated well—
"Let them sing American songs, dance American dances, identify with American culture, make them believe that the ideals of freedom were the only truth in the world, make them think America was the supreme beacon of light in this world."
"..."
Li Ye was not sure how much overlap there would be between the thinking of someone at Teacher Ke's level and that of a small fry like himself. So he could not tell her, "There was an exchange student named Yeltsin." He could only use the phrase "I heard" to reveal a sliver of heavenly secrets to her.
In truth, America's cultural export had never stopped. It wanted to use its own strength to make everyone else accept its views.
If one analyzed it carefully, was this not the same path once taken by the Tang and Qing dynasties? No matter what bloodline you had, you could be brought into the same framework—
But in the end, who stood at the core of that framework? The Hu people? Or the Han people?
Think of Li Shimin playing polo in Chang'an back then. Did those Hu players not perform with all their might, merely begging to earn a cup of rewarded wine?
While worshipping strength, they lost themselves.
After Li Ye finished speaking, Teacher Ke looked at him calmly until his scalp began to prickle.
"I heard from Xiao Yu that there are quite